


Faded

by searlajt



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Spoilers, Introspection, Multi, Nostalgia, Self-Esteem Issues, Superfamily (Marvel), guilty complex, no happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-28
Updated: 2018-04-28
Packaged: 2019-04-29 01:22:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14462082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/searlajt/pseuds/searlajt
Summary: Spider-Man and Peter Parker should be no different, when he was wearing that mask. But indeed, there were times in which he felt more like the superhero, and times when he was just a boy from Queens.! ! !  INFINITY WAR SPOILERS ! ! !





	Faded

**Author's Note:**

> MAJOR AVENGERS INFINITY WAR AHEAD, LIKE, M A J O R

He couldn’t understand what was happening, in the beginning. He felt the universe telling him something was wrong, there had been a major shift that he couldn’t quite grasp, like some word he had on the tip of his tongue but still couldn’t remember. His spider senses were on the very edge and yet they could’t understand too, they were terribly frustrated, but at the same time, it was as if they were telling him, with no mercy, that there would be no return from this. He shook his head, as if to let that dreadful feeling go, but it was soon replaced by physical pain.

It came slowly, at first, like a slightly too strong tickle on his skin, behind the armor of Iron Spider Mister Stark had given him just hours before. Had it really happened just that very afternoon? It seemed like he’d been in space for ages, but they were just mere hours, minutes, seconds. Clocks were still ticking, the Earth was still spinning. He noticed, as the tickling sensation increased and started to slightly burn, that he missed his Planet. It was strange there, on Titan, with no trees, no blue sky, no skyscrapers. Hadn’t been for the destroyed vehicles and homes of the past inhabitants, he wouldn’t have had anything on which to throw his webs, he wouldn’t have the opportunity to swing around like he did in New York City, back home. Home. It was such a strange feeling to miss home, but as the fire on his skin turned to a severe sting all over him, home was the only thing he could think of.

“I don’t feel so good, Mister Stark” he said, when the sting became too strong to bear without a wince, as he did every time something or someone hurt him, because he needed to focus, to save as many people as he could, pain was something he was accustomed to. But this kind of pain, those million needles stabbing him in all places was something new, and it hurt, it hurt like hell. He felt his knees go weak for the pain and without even realizing it, he started to shake with fear. The pain was all around him, and inside him, he started to feel each cell of his cry out in pain. And he was scared, scared like he had never been in his whole life: when you’re a superhero, being scared isn’t part of the package. You always need to be brave, courage must be your second name, you cannot show those you’re trying to protect how much you fear to lose them, to disappoint them - _but you always disappoint everyone, you should’ve got used to it by now, Peter_. You must be the superhero, Spider-Man, no time for Peter Parker. But in that exact moment, even if his senses were all Spidey’s, he was more Peter than ever. Just a boy trying to catch his breath and cling to the only thing he could get a grasp on, and that happened to be Tony Stark. How pathetic it must have looked from the outside, to see Iron Spider trembling before the one man he always felt like he needed to make proud. Soon, tears started streaming down his bare cheeks, because the pain was all he could feel. He heard _everything_ , the universe crying out for help, trying to save itself from the utter destruction someone was causing. And in that very moment, he understood. Thanos had won. He had probably got all the gems by now, and, with a simple gesture of his hand, he had completed his mission. Peter happened to be just an irrelevant card in his deck, and he was being casted away. Like that, with a snap of his fingers. Panic rushed through his veins, at the realization that even if they were unable to catch everything from the true beginning, his spider senses had been right all along: there was no way to escape the inevitable.

“I don’t wanna go” he said, and his voice came out as a rasp against Mister Stark’s shoulder, where his head was resting, if that could be called “resting”, when he was irrationally clinging to that man like he held his own life in his hands, like he was the only way to safety. He didn’t want to go, not yet, not when the world needed him, not when his dream of becoming an Avenger had become reality, at last, and he had thought for one foolish moment of actually be worth something, as Tony had laid his hand on his shoulder and told him he had finally made it. But there he was, hugging Ironman so tight he could have squeezed him to death. It was starting to get difficult to focus on anything but the pain. He didn’t notice they both had fallen to the ground, with Mister Stark murmuring him that everything was going to be fine. He couldn’t hear anything anymore, just aglacially clear whistle in his ears. It was getting hard to see, even, it was all blurry, fading.

“Please, _please,_ Mister Stark, I don’t want to go”

Suddenly, he felt the pain slowly go away, like it had never been there, leaving him in a caress of farewell. He kept weeping, erraticly, but it was just because of how scared he was.

He thought of home. Aunt May preparing him pancakes on Saturday mornings, when he always tried to stay with her and fight the urge to go outside and protect the citizens of his city, just to spend some time with the most important person in his life, the one who had given him everything to make him feel loved throughout his worse times, when he couldn’t believe in anything but her. Times like those had always been quite common, having seen so many people he held dear go away, but as he became Spider-Man they had vastly increased. He hated himself for that, because they shouldn’t have, he was a superhero now, he was stronger, faster. But still he felt like he couldn’t be accepted by anyone, like his mask was a secret much bigger than he was, a responsibility his eighteen years old shoulders couldn’t bear, like he didn’t want to risk trusting Spidey, when he was the one to which all Queens referred to when in trouble. But his aunt had always been there for him, she had never judged him for anything, not for not having had a girlfriend for a long time in high school, not for having only a couple of friends, not for being the first one in every class he was attending. She was always proud of him the way he was. Not Spider-Man, just Peter. She was home, always had been and always will be, even when his body would turn to stone on that planet, so far away from New York, from Delmar’s sandwiches, from MJ and Ned, from his forgotten rucksack on the bus directed home, where May would have been waiting for him, for a long time. His heart broke to pieces at the thought of leaving her like that, without saying goodbye. He would have never seen her light up as he told her that MIT had accepted him for the program in Biological Engineering he had always dreamt about. She would have probably started to cry, her hand cupped on her mouth from surprise, and smacked a bit too moist kiss on his right cheek. He would have cleaned his face in disgust afterwards and she would have rolled her eyes to the back of her head, sighing “Teenagers”.

Because that was all he was. He had been forced to grow up a bit too soon, but he was just was just a kid, after all, even if he hated when everyone else reminded him so. A kid who could stop a bus with his bare hands, but, in the end, just a boy from Queens.

“I’m sorry”, he said at last, when he felt himself lose everything that was holding him to the ground. When he caught his last breath, with tears still rolling down the corners of his hazel eyes, he saw Mister Stark for the last time, clear in front of him, with the most hurtful expression on his face. It was strange to see him like that, he thought, with no trace of his usual sarcasm and arrogance, knelt in front of him, almost cradling him in his arms, like the boy he was.

Peter wasn’t given the chance to know that Tony was thinking of him as _his_ boy, or that there would’ve been no corpse for May to cry on, that he would’ve been blown away like dust to the wind.

He felt ice cold envelop him like a deadly glove and, from that moment on, the only thing he could know was darkness. 

**Author's Note:**

> Honestly, I'm just extremely sorry. I love Peter Parker with every fiber of my being and seeing him go like that, in the blink of an eye, was so unbearable I had to put the pain into words to try to ”exorcise” it. I'm sorry, I don’t even think there is a point in the whole thing, it's just blurry thoughts on paper, but they all are my bare emotions after this heart breaking movie. Please, Peter, come home.  
> ps: i’m Italian, so my mother tongue isn’t English, as you probably already noticed from my writing


End file.
